The present invention relates to welding applications and techniques and, more particularly, to an assembly and method for securely positioning objects with respect to each other that are to be welded on or the like.
It is usually advantageous to securely position and hold objects to one another during the welding or joining together in order to obtain a good seal or weld joint therebetween. For example, it is often necessary for plumbers and other practioners to have to weld pipes and pipe junction members together during plumbing applications. For instance, it might be required to weld a universal sockalet type pipe junction member to a main flow pipe line to form a tee flow junction. In this application, the sockalet pipe piece would be positioned above an aperture in the main pipe line and welded thereto. Thus, it is important that the sockalet be securely held in position with respect to the main pipe during the welding operation.
Hence, there exists a need for an apparatus or tool that can securely hold in position the sockalet pipe junction, for example, with respect to the aperture in the main pipe in order to obtain a good welding joint to prevent leaking therefrom. It may also be desirable to allow the plumbing system to be purged during the welding operation by flushing or the like through one or the other, or even both joining pipe members while the holding tool is in place.